What is Refurber about?
The Refurber site is dedicated to allowing renovators to
publish an article providing that it is
DIY (including landscaping) Advice that aims to help refurbisher's, renovators/remodelers with their own approaches to their own projects, that they are very passionate about and be able to seek support, guidance and friendship through the often challenging but rewarding results DIY brings.This is what makes Refurber unique. All Remodelers, DIY'ers, Landscapers, Home Improvement Renovator's, Restorer's are all welcome. For ease I'll use one word, DIY'ers.
- The Question and Answer area also allows for DIY'ers to ask and respond to questions on refurbishing topics and site help issues only.
- Member blogs, groups and forums are for free expression and not restricted to DIY advice, but the content must not breach Refurber's terms and conditions of use.
You get points for doing all the things you can do on the site, basically the more you are nice, share, blog (in your own blog or groups/forums), comment or write parenting advice the more points you get.
Understanding what makes an article?
Traditionally an e-article (online article) is more than 200 words with a maximum of 2,000 words. We aren't that
strict, however 50 words as a real bear minimum is fine. However, don't get too disappointed, it may not have a higher probability of reach in Search Engines/Refurber, may not attract good votes, or ensure your advice and message gets across to your audience, but that's all you may want to share.
We do encourage you to feel free to let yourself write more to avoid disappointment and possibly avoid low votes.
Definition of DIY Advice in Refurber: It is any advice directly providing benefit for other DIY'ers in bringing up their projects to life, however that means everything is and related to the topic of DIY in the building, land and housing industries. However, the advice has to aim to provide some sort of takeaway or added value to their intended audience (via experience sharing, quoting, explaining, showing off etc)
Anything other than DIY or DIY related post in Groups or your own blog.
Copyright rules (fair use allowed) and Code of Conduct...Keeping the community fair and friendly
- You must not copy someone else's work whole or in part thereof (offline or online) unless you have permission or the content is in the Public Domain (check at the end of the content for copyright conditions), but you can reference or get your ideas from other content, but you must follow fair use and cite your sources properly, giving authors credit where due.
- Your article must be "in your own words" of the authors article you are talking about. Only quote 10% of the article (usually a paragraph or an important sentence) and you must include a link to the source after the exact wording.
- You must also provide the link to the original source even if the article just gave you the idea. (Linking the source is fine in the "external links" area, it doesn't have to be in the body of your article)
How to obtain permission from an original author in less than 48 hours.
- Send an email saying what site you are a member of, the benefits of having permission to reproduce their content.
- Ask if you can site the source and will place a link back to their site directly to the reproduced content from your article in the "bookmarks" section.
- Add the email proof into a blog post in the public Refurber group called "Copyright Permission Proof Area"
Fairness and Respect
You are not allowed to "flame a member" for their opinions and comments. Take the argument offline or into a group area. Flaming a member will result in your account being reported and you may get terminated.
Reporting a Members Article...
What's not easy to fix is damaged feelings and emotions. This is were we all must assume that members don't intent to outright copy and we also need to assume that sometimes we even forget to remember how to give authors proper credit, that is OK, as it's so easy to change and fix and still share advice (
avoiding plagerism, fair use). More often that not, most authors love the spreading of their message, they just don't like anyone claiming it as their own. Easy fix!!!
However, if you copyright word for word (and you don't state at the end of your article that you have permission or what you are copying has not stated that it is in the public domain and therefore free to copy word for word), then please keep in mind that it
will be reported and members
will report your article (you can check for copyright by selecting a line of the content and pasting this in google, as google indexes publications and documents not just websites).
The trick here is not to get upset as a member who owns the article, as well as the members who report the article...it is an exercise in sorting the issue out
to protect the members of Refurber from being sued by the original authors.
Copyright is a global rule affecting every website and everyone in a commercial arena so we must treat this as an important consideration when writing (publishing) an article accessible from all over the web.
Making an impact with your article...
Great all round articles I find are the ones that that consider the following below...
1. Appeal to your audience and consider your style of writing…
a) Think about who your audience is...
- Some are first time DIY'ers
- The process of DIY can be VERY frustrating
- Feelings of helplessness
- No one to turn to
- Some may be experienced DIY'ers set an example for them to also contribute
- Desire to make contractors more honest and motivated - ha
- Wannabe good project managers
- Wannabe on time projects
- Need help managing relationships whilst DIY'ing
- the list goes on...
b) Consider your style of writing your article…
- Be friendly and use positive language, make the format easy to read. Put spaces between your paragraphs, do not bold or capitalize your whole title and the entire article...
- Headings that stand out are ones that are "Title Cased"...the first letter is capped. Example..."The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog"
- DIY'ers are more likely to be most open to learning from real advice and real DIY personal experiences.
- If possible try to speak from experience, this allows readers to draw their own conclusions. (Eg. This is what I went through and what I experienced then give your advice, rather than ‘you must do this my way’)
- Sharing this way leaves no room for misinterpretation, is non-threatening, non-judgmental and fosters a safer environment for the community.
- A great goodwill to DIY'ers. Consider that you are ‘giving back’ to your direct community and gaining some DIY reputation while you are hard, working at it.
2. Improve the rating of your article and you as a member within the community…
c) Simple Layout suggestions (you can be as individual as you like with your articles!):
- Select a meaningful title linked to what you have written.
- Write an interesting introductory sentence or paragraph.
- Provide the content of your advice or article, making sure to include key (important) words.
- Sum up your article with a brief conclusion.
- You can add links within your article, but remember that your reader may click on this and be taken away from your article before they had a chance to read it all. Instead under the heading’s [related articles] and [bookmark articles/links] select or add some links.
- If you do add links within your content, keep links relevant to the paragraph, links should help with the reader’s understanding.
d). Look, feel, supporting links and keywords (tags increases the likelihood you will get visits)
- Bold your headings not the entire article.
- Personalize the feel; why not pick an Avatar from the member pages to show what image best reflects you the author!
- Try to add at least one picture relevant to your article, DIY'ers NEED pictures!
- Do not cut and paste another person's article or content that passes off as your own.
- A possible photo source is Flickr.com but be sure that the photo is open for use (Creative Commons license) and that you provide a reference back to the source in line with the copyright conditions.
- Useful places to find reference information or sources to support your article include Wikipedia.org or a Google search on the topic.
- It always helps to add some relevant tag’s (keywords to refer to the article) to make sure your article is found. If the tag you want is not on the suggested list then put it in yourself.
- Having pictures, good links, and relevant tags will all help build visitors to your article from Refurber and also from results in Search Engines, like Google.
- In addition it will encourage bloggers to refer/link to your articles and generate discussion/comments at Refurber and within the blogging community.
A note on Providing Content on the Refurber site...
If you post anything, you guarantee to us that:
- You do have legal rights to post your material and it will not violate any laws, or copyright law or the rights of any person; and
- All information and materials of any kind, including graphics, text, or otherwise posted by someone on the Refurber Site ("Member Content") are subject to the following terms:
By posting Member Content you give us the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to: allow other people to use the Member Content as described in these Terms; and to use, distribute, display, and create derivative works from this Member Content, in any and all media, in any manner, in whole or in part, without any restriction or responsibilities to you; You understand that we are not responsible for the truth, completeness, objectivity, or usefulness of any Member Content, nor do we endorse any Member Content; We do not verify the identity of people using our Site, and you assume the risk of believing any Member Content you read; and We do not screen, monitor, edit, or review Member Content. We do have the right to monitor or remove any Member Content at any time and without notice if we believe it will improve our Site. We can also suspend or terminate use of the Services by anyone who does not follow these Terms.
- You are entirely responsible for any copyright breaches and MUST seek permission to replicate any content whole or in part thereof.
You should also be aware that any message posted to our Site will become public and any personal information you post in an article will be accessible to any visitors to the Refurber Site. Except for private areas, which are Member's Lounge's (only friends of the member can view and participate) and groups where the creator of the group has selected the group to be private. Take care in not divulging any specific personal information such as home address, specific places you frequent, rather it is recommended to talk broadly, like the suburb or create a fictional name of your houses/projects. Don't show pictures with a name of a place in the background, unless your traveling and don't go there everyday or even occasionally.
How to get ideas for advice?
- One thing that is useful is having a look at photos you have taken on your journey of DIY'ing. It may jog your memory of the issues you where dealing with, easy or challenging, happy or sad times.
- You may also review the DIY books you may have read at the time and remember what worked for you, as it may have been a mix of things.
- Try and remember when you canvassed for advice from other DIY'ers or master DIY'ers, and what you actually ended up doing. Each DIY'er has their own formula and everyone is different with their own ambitious styles, so this type of advice is very useful.
Does your article currently have a ‘poor’ rating?
Conduct a sanity check, have you used all the tips on ‘How to write a good article?’ If not, then perhaps review and amend areas that your article doesn’t have. Votes can improve and you are free to edit your article as and when you like.
(May 2007) (
